18 comments:

Thanks, Marty! I really hope folks enjoy this book - but further, that they USE it. Take it out onto the field. I hope that it helps folks appreciate and understand the battle more, to discover and learn about more battlefields surrounding Gettysburg, and to take the tours of the town the cemeteries, and even the rock carvings.

Thanks, Gary - we hope so. Of course, any "complete" guide to Gettysburg would be something like 10,000 pages, and probably still wouldn't be "complete." However, we think folks will get so much more out of this guide than any other, or combination of any others.And Steve's maps are truly the gem of this thing.J.D.

We've gotten a few comments regarding this map - specifically why that "Gen. Sample" shown on there wasn't used by Lee during the battle. Well, Sample's Corps was that mysterious "lost 4th Corps" of the Army of Northern Virginia. Sample and his men always seemed to disappear from the fight when it got the hottest.

J.D.Gen. Sample was confused during the battle as General Lee's orders were in the form of a long run on sentence without punctuation in the format followed exactingly by the Battlefield Commission when placing tablets on the battlefield after the war so he moved from the right flank taking up a position on the left of Law's Brigade but failed to see the signal to advance then withdrew in the direction of Fairfield.

Seriously, though very good maps. My fear is I'll have a lot of updates to do for my Gettysburg marker project! But that is a good thing.

In a future revised edition of the Guide, we'll include this information on Sample.

BTW, I heard Gen. Sample died a penniless, lonely man. After the war, looking for a career, he began developing an early form of kiosk placed at grocery markets, giving away examples of the market's fare. You know, things like little fried weenies and those cheese and cracker combos. It never took off.

JD,You realize that the great-great-grandson of General Samples was Junior Samples. Junior is well known as an entrepreneur and leading figure in the "New South" of the post-post-Reconstruction era. He made one bid for the governorship of Georgia, but failed in the party primaries to gain much support. In a world before eBay and Craigslist, Junior maintained a highly lucrative "swapping" business.

Junior's marketing slogan is only surpassed by "See Rock City" in product identification. To this day people still call 1-800-BR5-4949 seeking to purchase some of his offerings.

The colors for the first and second positions of the units help in understanding their movements. For me, if the first position for both sides were dark and the second light, I would have understood them better but there is likely a reason for the current colors.

That was Steve's call, but I think it works. That way the darker units are recognized as the second positions, often when the two sides clash. I think you'll see that as you go through the entire book and the 70 maps, you'll get used to seeing them that way and your mind's eye will immediately pick right up on the different positions without thinking about it.

They're both quite different. If you're more interested in touring the battlefield and many related sites around Gettysburg (the June 26 battlefields, rock carvings, hospital sites, East Cavalry Field, Hunterstown, Fairfield, etc) and seeing many things on the main battlefield you may not have known were there, then my book will fit the bill.

The Companion is more of a coffee-table type general history. And you may want to check out the reviews of the book on its Amazon page, as well as an upcoming review in the Civil War News (which I've been told will be quite negative about that book) - because much of the information in the book is quite inaccurate. I've only perused it myself, and saw some things that didn't impress me. From my perspective, I saw much about the cavalry that was very wrong, and an artillery expert who looked through it said most of everything pertaining to the artillery was inaccurate. So, judge for yourself.

But as I said, the purposes of the two books are very different. My book you can take out onto the field with you, and the other - well, I'm told by those who've read it that it will keep your coffee table from walking away :)

JDThanks for your explanation. I guess my old eyes and cognition will have to learn that the colors for Confederate first positions are light red and Union first are dark blue and vice versa for the second.

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About Me

I'm an insurance broker in Western Pennsylvania. My interest in the American Civil War began while I was a child, and I've long been very interested in the cavalry. My first book appeared in 2006, the second in 2008, and my third book has appeared in June 2009. In June 2010, the first volume of an audio tour of the Gettysburg battlefield, based on my third book (with Steve Stanley) was released. In June 2011, my latest book with Steve (The New Gettysburg Campaign Handbook) was be released. I was recently named the Historical Advisor for the upcoming (2013) TV mini-series "To Appomattox."